


Notorious

by kasiapeia



Series: Neither Time Nor Space Could Keep Us Apart [4]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Like Aeryn would be able to stay away from Gambit Prime and Reckoning, Season of the Drifter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 19:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18017297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kasiapeia/pseuds/kasiapeia
Summary: It's been a few months since Aeryn-4 abandoned the Vanguard to do her own thing, but when a mysterious letter stamped with a curled, emerald snake lands on her doorstep, she finds herself in the undercroft of the Tower.She wasn't expecting to be greeted by another rogue lightbearer.And she certainly wasn't expecting the idea he had in mind.





	Notorious

She’s heard rumours about him, of course. There ain’t a rogue lightbearer out there that hasn’t heard of him, and even if she’s only been officially rogue for a few short months, those months have given her more than enough time to learn things that the Vanguard would most certainly have kept her from.

Not that they were ever really good at controlling her.

He’s made as much of a name for herself as she has, but she’s always been clear about what her goal is. Him? Not so much. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her, like he can see right through her, dark eyes glinting with something that makes her uneasy. It’s not often that she finds anyone that can match her.

But she seems to have found her match.

“Was wonderin’ when we’d meet, Shadow.” She hates the alias the people of the City have bestowed upon her, but it’s even worse hearing it from his lips. Every syllable he utters drips with sickly sweet venom. “Figured it wouldn’t be long until you showed up on my doorstep.”

“Drifter.” Her voice is as cold as the steel that makes up her body. She tries not to show her trepidation, but she doesn’t know if she succeeds. He embodies everything the people whisper about rogue lightbearers; he’s the pinnacle of those who follow no one’s law but their own. Her hand itches for her gun. She forces herself to shove it in her pocket, curling her fist around the crumpled note she’d found slid under the crack in her door this morning, a twisting emerald snake marking the back of the page. “What do you want?”

The Void shimmers around her, her outline glittering an ever-so-slight purple, as he steps towards her, teeth glinting in the flickering light of the Annex.

“You’ve been making a name for yourself, Aeryn-4.” As much as she’d hated hearing her alias on his lips, she hates hearing her name even more.

“You’re one to talk. You’re lucky I’m still in—somewhat—good standing with the Vanguard. Do you know how many Hidden are monitoring you?”

“They ain’t the only ones watching me.”

“How… reassuring.” She lets out a sigh. “Why am I here, Drifter?”

The older man steps away from the railing he’d been leaning against, tossing an emerald coin between his hands. She can barely keep track of it as it disappears and reappears out of nowhere. “You’ve heard of Gambit?”

Metal teeth grind against each other. “Who hasn’t by this point? You haven’t exactly kept it on the down-low.”

“Hey, hey, hey, no need for the animosity, sister.”

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” she spits at him through her gritted teeth.

“There anything I can call you without getting that scary look?” She doesn’t give him an answer. “You didn’t come round when I sent you the invite for that, but I think I’ve got something that’ll be up your alley.”

“If I wasn’t interested in whatever Dark-touched nonsense you’ve been brewing up last time, why do you think I’ll be interested this time?”

“Oh come on,” he says with a smile that’s all teeth. He leans in close enough that she can see every fleck of gold in his green eyes. “You walk a very thin line between light and dark, sister. What I’ve got is _designed_ for people like you.”

She is all metal and plastic, a remnant of Golden Age tech, but in that instant she feels something very human: fear.

“You know nothing about me.” The words do not come out sounding as confident as she’d like them to.

“I know about what you did at Twilight Gap. I know that you stopped at _nothing_ to stop the Fallen. Your brothers and your sisters—”

“Don’t you _dare_ talk to me of Twilight Gap,” she snarls then, and the indigo that had been shimmering around her solidifies into a thick, opaque cloud that reeks strongly of ozone and of something far more ancient than either of them. “You weren’t _there_.”

“You’ll do anything to survive. Ain’t just Twilight Gap. I’ve seen that cannon you run around carrying like it’s no big deal. The Vanguard know you have that? That gun’s got no more Light than any of mine. You don’t care if you have to go through a little dark to get to the light at the end of the tunnel. What’s it matter to you if this is a little more dark than you’re used to?”

The light overhead flickers and goes out. They are only illuminated by the roiling clouds of Void that surround Aeryn, the same colour as her glowing eyes. The clouds crackle with uncontained energy, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.

If he knows that they call her Shadow, he knows why they call her that, too. He knows what she can do with the power of the Void. He knows that it bends to her like it bends to few others. Lightbearers are hard to kill but she could wipe him from the face of the universe, crush him so thoroughly that his Ghost would be unable to bring him back.

 And the Drifter…

The Drifter takes half a step back.

He doesn’t back down, doesn’t retreat, but that confident glint in his emerald eyes disappeared as soon as the light had gone out.

“You scared of me, Drifter?” She lets her voice go all metallic, and it’s like scraping ice with a sword; rough, coarse, and sharp as all hell.

“Ain’t nobody in their right mind who ain’t scared of you,” is all he says. “Now are you in or are you not? Because if you are, I promise you’ll be rewarded greatly.”

“And if I’m not?”

“If you’re not, then you walk away with nothin’ and I don’t bother you again.”

 _Aeryn._ Aileen connects to her auditory nerves with an almost-silent whir, the Ghost materialising only to hover beneath the Lightbearer’s hood, out of sight. _There won’t be any going back from this._

She pauses, only to consider her Ghost’s warning for a second before Void-purple eyes meet the Drifter’s green. “Just tell me what I need to do.”


End file.
